Lazy Gardener's Little Town Farm

So sorry you ladies have those negative memories. I am blessed in this: My Dad was a huge mentor to me, and still is. He is a brilliant man, has always been enterprising: started his first sheep flock at the age of 14. Was driving truck and handling a milk route at that age. BOUGHT his first farm while still in high school. Paid it off within a year by selling U-pick raspberries. And, he continued on with that same enterprising spirit his whole life. He is a spiritual man of God, Gentle spirited, rarely has an unkind word, even when going through the neglect at the hands of his so called caretakers in hospital and rehab. I owe much of what I am to him. I only wish I could be as kind hearted! I am quick to anger when I see abuse, neglect, stupid, which causes harm to the weaker among us.
 
My "bad memories" are only of watching mom decline and the overall sadness and experience with the last of her years being far less than good with health (Altzhimers) . And the total stress of all the issues with care, finally a nursing home, etc. -- Not my childhood. My dad had passed when I was 27.

Really hard to watch your parents decline with health diseases. We expect some aging limitations, it's the other issues. With Altzhimers you are tending to "someone else" in a body you know. It's often strange.
 
God is moving like never before in Israel. There is a movement of the Holy Spirit like has never been seen since the early days of the church, before Christianity was dispersed from Israel into the uttermost parts of the world. God is calling His people home. The Holy Spirit is doing a mighty work. Many Jews are coming to faith in their Messiah, Ye'shua, Jesus Christ. And, they are then spreading that message. We are living in times of fulfillment of end time prophesies. I praise the holy name of God. and lift him high. In these times of distress and discouragement. When our nation is divided. When there is great fear of disease. When there is economic chaos. MY GOD REIGNS. HE IS IN CONTROL. HE KNOWS THE NUMBER OF MY DAYS. I PRAISE GOD WITH MY EVERY BREATH. ON THE MOUNTAINS, IN THE VALLEYS, IN THE MOMENTS OF MY EVERY DAY, I WANT TO LIFT HIS HOLY NAME.
 
Mini Horses said:
My "bad memories" are only of watching mom decline and the overall sadness and experience with the last of her years being far less than good with health (Altzhimers) . And the total stress of all the issues with care, finally a nursing home, etc. -- Not my childhood. My dad had passed when I was 27.

Really hard to watch your parents decline with health diseases. We expect some aging limitations, it's the other issues. With Altzhimers you are tending to "someone else" in a body you know. It's often strange.
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I don't really have bad memories, I was not abused, just ignored. I was Daddy's girl and spent a lot of time with my grandparents. Since I didn't have a loving Mother, I didn't know any better until I was an older teenager. By that time, I didn't care, I went my own way. I sure made sure that MY kids were loved! I guess overall, after having Mom live with us after having her stroke, I just feel sorry for my Mom more that anything else, she cheated herself out of so much. She was ugly and hateful to my older sister who does have bad memories. Why do people have to be so screwed up? Why can't people just be happy?
 
I have great memories of childhood. My father worked a lot but he did take time with each of us for a simple little thing like an evening out on the half mile lake in the canoe. Weekend trips to the families place in Vt. Things that didn't cost alot of money but we did them together.
My mom was a stay at home mom, until my sister was little and finances got tight there in the 60's. She always gardened for the additional food to be preserved and to "add to the financial/food security" of the family. She helped build the guinea pig and rabbit cages.... the chicken coops .... took us to the local county fairs .... we competed in all the cooking/baking classes.
There wasn't much strife that I was aware of until older and realized that it wasn't quite the "Cleavers".... and now there are so many under currents with the one brother. But I will remember the good and let the bad just pass.
 
I have many fond memories of spending a work day with my Dad. He was a general contractor, so I would ride with him to the job sites, hang out and explore while he checked on the various needs of each site. Wander through the cow barn at one site, play in the mud at an other, toss rocks for 2 giant boxers to retrieve at an other. Played hide and seek, and enjoyed "sneaking up on the work crew" in the developing maze of duct work in the potato houses he was building in "the county"! I was good at self amusement, and always felt like the richest kid in the world when he gave me a quarter to buy a bag of chicken scratch grain at the local Agway for my banties.
 
I didn't see my Dad much as a child. He was one of those men that have difficulty dealing with small children. When I got older and he realized he could have a meaningful conversation with me, we grew closer; that made my Mom jealous I think-- she tried to drive a wedge between us.
Dad didn't spend much time at home- partially because home ended up being a stressful place due to my Mom's mental illness. We are pretty certain she was bi-polar, but refused to go to a doctor about it because SHE wasn't crazy (it was obviously the rest of the world that was out of step) so she was never diagnosed and never treated.
Dad was an amazing man. He ran away from home at 15 and made his way to Austin, where he worked his way through college (went for a degree in music playing the clarinet) and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to the Sorbonne in Paris, which is where he met my Mom. After they married, he brought her back to Texas where he taught French at the University while taking classes at night in engineering. It wasn't until he died that I discovered (from my DH) that my Dad had been one of the early pioneers in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (and he was a REAL Rocket Scientist, lol). After he retired, he continued to use his remarkable mind-- got interested in ancient Egypt and learned to read their hieroglyphics fluently, then got interested in astronomy and made his own telescope by grinding the lenses out of old glass jars. When death finally took him, he was learning to play the piano, and step dancing.

I miss my Dad. We didn't have a really close relationship in the sense of spending lots of time together. Neither of us did a lot of "reaching out", which I regret somewhat, but I realize it's just the kind of person he was-- and I am too. I am working to change that in myself, but it's not easy. I love my children fiercely, and I think they know that, but they understand that they never were and never will be the center of my universe.
 
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